AIKYA helps to promote the welfare and interests of children with Autism, ADHD, Down Syndrome and specific learning disabilities. To improve the support these children receive, AIKYA provides a wide range of materials for teachers, parents and others who work with children with special needs. We hope this blog will be a valuable resource for parents, schools, teachers, and professionals.

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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Autism is a developmental disorder that typically appears during the first three years of life of the individual.. Autism impacts the normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction and communication skills. Children and adults with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions and imagination. It is a spectrum disorder.

CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTISM :

Autism is characterized by a marked impairment in the following areas:

• Social skills: Kids with autism have difficulty in initiating and sustaining relationships with their peers. It is not that they do not relate, it is that they relate in a different way. It is not that people with autism do not want to make friends, but often they do not know how. Thus, it becomes critical to teach them social skills. However, some social difficulties remain throughout life. These social deficits are the most difficult to overcome.

• Communication skills: Individuals with autism have their core difficulty in the area of communication. Many of them do not develop speech; even the ones who have a relatively good language development do not use it effectively for communication. Individuals with autism also have difficulty in using and comprehending non-verbal modes of communication like gestures and facial expressions.

• Play skills: A marked absence of pretend and imaginary play is one of the key features of autism.

Autistic individuals may show abnormal responses to sensations. Any one or more of the senses may be affected. All these difficulties manifest themselves in behaviours i.e. abnormal ways of relating to people, objects and events in the environment.

Why an Awareness Week

In the recent years there has been a marked increase in the incidence of autism. Studies have shown that I in every 500 people may be autistic or have autistic features. However, lack of awareness about the condition, leads to misdiagnosis and hence wrong intervention. It has been established that early detection and intervention can make a remarkable difference to the child’s life.

Through the Awareness programme we seek to educate and empower parents, who we believe, are the first and the best resource for their children. AIKYA seeks to create awareness in the community about autism, because an accepting and understanding environment can go a long way in rehabilitating an individual.

April is Autism Awareness Month, check your awareness level on Autism.: understanding certain facts about this condition is extremely important.

Autism is no longer an obscure, rare thing. It's all around us, and we need to be tolerant, supportive, and vigilant in searching for answers so that we can eventually shed some light on what is causing this mysterious disorder.

• Are you aware that autism has now been deemed a worldwide epidemic?

• Did you know that one in one hundred fifty children has autism in the United States? (That's a whole lot.) .We do not have figures in India

• Did you know that a child is diagnosed with autism every twenty minutes?

• Are you aware that autism is more prevalent than breast cancer, leukemia, juvenile diabetes, and many other conditions?

• Did you know that autism is not caused by bad parenting or a lack of parental bonding?

• Did you know that the symptoms of autism vary greatly from child to child, with some being severely affected and others only mildly?

• Experts now say that children with autism have a genetic predisposition to the condition, but it is set in motion by some sort of mysterious environmental trigger. (This is the same explanation experts are giving for juvenile diabetes, too--genetic predisposition plus environmental trigger.)